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Beyond Traditional Mentoring:
Peers and Networks

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Coaching and Mentoring:

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How to Develop Top Talent and Achieve Stronger Performance
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Harvard Business School Press

Boston, Massachusetts
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ISBN-10: 1-4221-0617-9
ISBN-13: 978-1-4221-0617-4
6174BC

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Copyright 2006 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

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This chapter was originally published as chapter 11 of Coaching and Mentoring,
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11

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Beyond Traditional
Mentoring

Peers and Networks

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Key Topics Covered in This Chapter
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• Learning from peers

• When peer mentoring works best

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• The benefits of a mentoring network

• Tips for creating a network of mentors

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r e v i o u s c h a p t e r s on mentoring have focused on
the traditional approach, in which a higher-ranking,
more experienced manager or executive provides guid-
ance and sage advice to a lower-ranking, less experienced protégé.
This one-on-one approach of master and apprentice has much to
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recommend it. However, that approach has no monopoly on the ca-
reer and psychosocial functions that people seek in mentoring rela-
tionships, specifically:
• Sponsorship that opens doors
• Coaching
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• A measure of organizational protection

• Opportunities for greater visibility in the company
• Challenging assignments that stretch one’s capabilities
• Role modeling of appropriate behaviors and values
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• Counseling
• Support and acceptance
• Friendship that makes one feel secure and appreciated.1
Some of these functions can be obtained through peer-to-peer men-
toring, and all can be captured through a mentoring network that in-
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cludes both peers and higher-level people.This chapter will explore

these nontraditional approaches to mentoring and how you can
make the most of them.

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Beyond Traditional Mentoring 3

Mentoring Peer-to-Peer

The value of peer-to-peer mentoring has been documented in Linda

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Hill’s 1992 study of newly minted managers.2 Most of the managers
in that study testified that access to a network of peers was a key
ingredient in their successful mentoring experiences. In the end,
they judged relationships with peers—and not with superiors—to
be their most important developmental experiences.
Peer-to-peer mentoring rests on this solid premise: Ambitious

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and hardworking young managers have a great deal to learn from
each other, and because they have shared experiences, they can em-
pathize and provide mutual support.

Patrick, a twenty-something market analyst, has a problem. His boss

gives him almost no opportunities to make decisions or to make larger
contributions to the marketing department.As he explains to his friend,
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Bob, a peer in the logistics department, and a person with whom
Patrick has worked frequently,“I like my boss as a person, and we gen-
erally get along well, but he’s driving me crazy.”
“What do you mean?” Bob asks.
“Well, he’s a ‘do this, do that’ type of boss. He makes all the plans
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and even plans out my week. I’m almost never consulted about what
we are doing. I’m never going to learn anything or gain visibility in this
company if this continues.This is really frustrating.”
Bob thinks for a moment.“Have you talked to him about this?”
“Yes, several times,” Patrick replies dejectedly.“But it doesn’t regis-
ter.The next day he has another to-do list for me.”
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Bob agrees that Patrick has a big problem—one that might retard
his career.“You have a lot to contribute,” Bob says.“What you need are
opportunities for doing it.”
They talk about various options: hope that the boss will either
move or get fired (not likely); talk confidentially to someone in human
resources about the problem (more promising); or look for opportunities
elsewhere (why not, Patrick has nothing to lose).
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“I have one more idea,” Bob says.“I’m having lunch next Mon-
day with Bert Malloy. Bert’s a marketing guy with PartsCo, one of our
key suppliers. I work with him often. He’s about five years older than

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4 Coaching and Mentoring

us, smart, a guy you can trust with confidential information, and he’s
had lots of management experience—a lot more than either of us.Why
don’t you join us for lunch? Bert might have some ideas for you.Who

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knows, he might offer you a job!”
In this story, Bob plays the role of mentoring peer. He provides sev-
eral of the functions associated with traditional mentoring: counsel-
ing, acceptance, and friendship.And in putting Patrick in touch with
Bert, he may have opened the door to additional counseling, role
modeling, and exposure to new career opportunities.

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Drawbacks

Peer mentors have drawbacks. They lack the power of high-level

mentors, which means that they cannot provide the sponsorship,
protection, challenge (through new assignments), and role modeling
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that many people need. Peers may also be competitors for promo-
tions, resources, and the favor of senior management.That competi-
tive element may undermine the trust that mentoring relationships
require. Also, some individuals may be reluctant to admit to a com-
petitive peer that they need help. Doing so says, “You’re the master
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and I’m the apprentice.You are better than me.” Not many people
will say this to a peer.

Advantages

Despite the obvious disadvantages, mentoring peers have two factors

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in their favor:
• There are usually many more peer mentors than senior men-
tors to choose from in a large company. Once all the direct
bosses and chain-of-command executives are eliminated from
the mentoring pool, there are few people left to turn to for
help and advice.And those that do remain may lack the partic-
ular experiences or skills that the protégé seeks. Some may be
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real losers who got to the top through seniority or a sycophan-

tic relationship with a higher-up. In contrast, the typical young
manager has many peers to whom he can turn for advice.

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Beyond Traditional Mentoring 5

• A peer is more likely to understand and empathize with the

problems of the ambitious, young learner. He or she is, after
all, in a very similar situation.

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Peer mentoring works best when (1) peers agree that each has
something to learn from the other, (2) when confidentiality can be
maintained, and (3) when each is willing to reciprocate. Consider
this example:
Andrea is a new employee who brings exceptional experience in dealing

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productively with strategic partners. Her main weakness is her ignorance
of the unwritten rules of how to get things done in the company. Brad,
on the other hand, has been around for several years and is an accom-
plished networker. He knows whom to call to get things done. But Brad
has no experience in dealing with outsiders—something he must learn
to do well if he hopes to advance within the company.
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Andrea and Brad have a basis to be peer mentors. Each has some-
thing of value for the other. Some companies attempt to match
people like Andrea and Brad in one-on-one peer mentoring rela-
tionships (see figure 11-1). In most cases the human resources de-
partment is in a good position to play this matchmaking role.
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A more ambitious approach to peer mentoring is to create a for-

mal pool of mentoring peers, as described in figure 11-2. Here the

F I G U R E 11-1

A One-on-One Mentoring Relationship

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6 Coaching and Mentoring

HR department determines which special capability each person has

to contribute to the pool, and which capability each could use in
developing his or her career. One company, for example, decided

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to pursue the seven habits of highly effective people described in
Stephen R. Covey’s best-selling book of the same name.The com-
pany’s human resource department took the lead in identifying indi-
viduals who had the greatest apparent mastery of each of the seven
habits.These individuals were then asked to coach a group of peers
on those habits.

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Each participant in this type of arrangement contributes to the
pool, and each draws a share of learning from it.The drawbacks of
the mentoring pool are twofold: (1) it requires substantial coordina-
tion, and (2) it shifts the initiative from individual learners to the
human resource department, which fills the coordinating role.
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In the end, peer mentoring—either one-on-one or pooled—is a
mixed bag of advantages and disadvantages, but one that can be as
useful as any you will establish with a high-level individual. If you
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F I G U R E 11-2

A Mentoring Pool
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Pool
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Beyond Traditional Mentoring 7

are seeking mentoring through this channel, be judicious about the

people you approach for help. Look for individuals who have an
important workplace quality you lack, and who are not intense com-

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petitors for the positions you seek. And above all, look for people
you can trust.

Network Mentoring

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Chopin once said,“Nothing is more beautiful than a guitar, except,
possibly, two.” Yes, more of some things is better than less, and that
applies to mentors. If there is one form of support and learning with
greater potential for the development of ambitious managers than
the master-protégé and peer-to-peer models described earlier, it is a
network of many mentors. Linda Hill, in the same research cited ear-
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lier in this chapter, also found that those who reported extensive and
varied networks of advisors and contacts, and who were willing to
ask for help, had an easier time coping with their initial management
challenges.As one budding manager told her:
As I saw what an opportunity for learning it was to talk to as wide a
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range of people as I could, I got better at calling up managers around the

country and getting to the point. I’d admit I was just looking for new
ideas.“Here is a situation.What would you do in this situation?” . . .
I don’t think you need just one mentor.You need to have lots of
people you can turn to for advice.You need to have friends who are ex-
perts about different things. 3
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Many individuals in Hill’s study, like the one cited above, reported
that they contacted peers in their networks on a weekly basis.
The benefits of a strong mentoring network are many:
• A “diversified portfolio” of mentors is more able than a single
mentor to provide the spectrum of career and psychosocial
functions required by the upwardly mobile manager.A single
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mentor can open some doors but not others. He or she can
model some valuable behavior, but not others.

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8 Coaching and Mentoring

• A single mentor who is too attached to the status quo can actu-
ally inhibit a protégé’s development.A broader selection of
mentors is likely to include people with new ideas that chal-

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lenge the status quo.
• A single mentor may have a vested interest in keeping a prom-
ising protégé in his department or in the company, even when
the protégé’s highest potential lies elsewhere. Likewise, the sin-
gle mentor may isolate the protégé from important outside in-
formation and discourage a career change that would be in the

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protégé’s best interest.4
• A single mentoring relationship will not sustain an expanding
career. Individual mentoring relationships are short-lived, sel-
dom lasting more than a few years.The protégé must eventually
say adieu to one trusted advisor and seek out another.A net-
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work of mentors provides continual support and learning.
• A mentoring network helps an individual to create productive
alliances in different units of an organization and at different
levels. Over time, those alliances can provide a huge career
benefit.
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Tips for Developing a Mentoring Network

• Make a list of learning needs within your own function and
in others.Then approach people who can help.
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• Get to know successful people in different functional areas of

your company. One way to do this is to volunteer for cross-
functional project teams.Your participation on those teams
will bring you into contact with competent people from
whom you can learn.
• Demonstrate your willingness and ability to return a favor.
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Mentoring is a two-way street.

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Beyond Traditional Mentoring 9

Summing Up

• For new managers, a network of peers can be the key to a suc-

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cessful mentoring experience.
• One of the benefits of peer mentoring is that there are many
more peers than suitable senior mentors available.
• Peers can provide many of the functions associated with tradi-
tional mentoring, but not all. Mentoring peers cannot provide

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the sponsorship, protection, challenge (through new assign-
ments), and role modeling that many people need.
• Peer mentoring works best when these three conditions are
present: (1) peers agree that each has something to learn from
the other, (2) confidentiality can be maintained, and (3) each is
willing to reciprocate.
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• As you seek out mentoring peers, look for individuals who
have an important workplace quality you lack, who are not in-
tense competitors for the positions you seek, and whom you
can trust.
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• A “diversified portfolio” of mentors will provide a more com-

plete spectrum of the career and psychosocial functions re-
quired by the upwardly mobile manager. So be prepared to
develop a network of mentors.
No
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Notes

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Chapter 11
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1.–For the developmental and psychosocial functions of mentoring, see

Linda Hill and Nancy Kamprath,“Beyond the Myth of the Perfect Mentor,”

10

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Notes 11

Class Note 9-491-096, Harvard Business School Publishing, June 10, 1998.
Also see Kathy E. Kram, Mentoring At Work: Developmental Relationships in
Organizational Life (New York: University Press of America, 1988).
2.–Linda A. Hill, Becoming A Manager (Boston: Harvard Business School

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Press, 1992), 226.
3.–Ibid.
4.–See Herminia Ibarra,“How to Stay Stuck in the Wrong Career,” Har-
vard Business Review¸ December 2002, 42.

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Harvard Business Essentials

The New Manager’s Guide and Mentor

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The Harvard Business Essentials series is designed to provide com-
prehensive advice, personal coaching, background information, and
guidance on the most relevant topics in business. Drawing on rich
content from Harvard Business School Publishing and other sources,
these concise guides are carefully crafted to provide a highly practi-
cal resource for readers with all levels of experience, and will prove

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especially valuable for the new manager. To assure quality and accu-
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Coaching and Mentoring
Creating Teams with an Edge
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Manager’s Toolkit
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Managing Change and Transition

Managing Creativity and Innovation
Managing Employee Performance
Managing Projects Large and Small
Marketer’s Toolkit
Negotiation
Power, Influence, and Persuasion
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Strategy
Time Management

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